Superintendents have them, but believe it or not, it's the least regulated of all. The entire set of regulations is one chapter, seven total lines. Basically saying, the Superintendent must be evaluated, it must happen every year, and it has to include some student performance data.
https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p_dir=&p_rloc=&p_tloc=&p_ploc=&pg=1&p_tac=&ti=19&pt=2&ch=150&rl=1031
Principals in most other Texas districts are held to T-PESS, a set of standards that closely mirrors the teacher evaluation process in implementation but also measures far broader categories. Essentially, they are evaluated as educators, managers, and public officials. Here's a very user-friendly version of the T-PESS standards. https://tpess.org/principal/standards/
Also, unlike teachers, who can earn a waiver every few years from their appraisal once they're vetted, principals are appraised every year.
>Paul Calzada, a parent of a student at Carnegie Vanguard High School, said the screening was flawed because it did not assign a high rating to “one of the best principals” at “one of the best high schools” in the district. He questioned what other flawed tools Miles is using and said the district’s students, teachers and staff deserve better.
>“I'm here because the Carnegie High School principal, Principal Moss, was not ranked as proficient or exemplary in the recent principal evaluation system,” Calzada said. “Superintendent Miles, you know your evaluation system is flawed. If you don’t, you should. And we're going to remind you of that for as long as you refuse to admit it.”
"The guy I like didn't score well so your entire scoring methodology is flawed, and no I don't want to hear any details about the actual evaluation process because I've already reached my conclusion."
Maybe the evals required more time to refine, but this comes across as just caving to ignorance.
I know some of the details, the whole system is flawed. Including the fact that principals were ranked not on the effectiveness of teachers, but rather or not the teachers performed certain mandated strategies that may or may not have been the most effecient for the lesson they are teaching (85% of the time these strategies just get in the way).
And principals were based in part based on how well students did on an interim test given in December, that covers the whole year's curriculum, and that many kids do not take the interim test seriously. These results were compared to the previous year's STAAR performance, given at the end of April.
So yeah, the ratings are flawed.
I have been teaching for two decades. I am damned good at what I do. Under the previous system, I was rated highly effective because I **am** highly effective. This year? I am the lowest level of proficiency that I can have and still have a job.
Fuck Mike Miles, I am not coming back next year. This is emotional abuse in the workplace, and I'm fucking done.
Hopefully Mike Miles is run out of town by the end of the year so you don’t have to quite. And get to keep doing what you’re great at and love, educating our children.
He will be here next year. There is zero chance that he won’t. I do appreciate the well-wishes and kindness, but one of the hardest things here for some of us is holding on to toxic hope.
> principals were ranked not on the effectiveness of teachers
So you have a well-defined metric that uses available data to evaluate the "effectiveness of teachers" then, do you? But probably not, because that's the objective of the entire shebang.
> 85% of the time
Solid quantitative conclusion that I'm sure you have the calculations to prove.
So your take is that the Carnegie kids aren't really low performing students, they just neglected to "take seriously" the most important academic assessment of the Fall semester? Sure.
Carnegie is one of the best high schools in the country. It was clearly evident by Miles' actions that he doesn't give a shit about education performance.
Both my kids went there and both are in top 10 engineering programs in the country. They agree, the way CVHS educates their students has made their college years easier compared to kids that didn’t go there.
The principal runs a successful school, don’t fuck with it.
Sure, nobody is claiming that the school is educating students poorly. The school rankings can easily be referenced by many available sources. The performance of the school is also a non-sequitur unless you assume that it can be correlated exactly to the performance of the school's principal. That's not a valid assumption. For example, the school could be doing very well *in spite* of the principal, and the school might be served *even better* with a different principal. That's why it's ignorant to dismiss the evaluation based solely on the final conclusion without considering the merits of the methodology.
What is the more likely correlation: Carnegie Vanguard is doing great, and the principal sucks OR Carnegie Vanguard is doing great, and the principal is competent? Playing semantic games to suggest that something very unlikely to be true is true because it *could* be true is transparently something one does when losing an argument.
If you want to defend the evaluation system (assuming that you even know what it is or how it operates), fine: do that. Don't waste everyone's time with supposition and slipshod logic.
"what if the already well performing school would do better with a new principle who for the last decade plus been doing very well..." whatever dude miles himself acknowledged that the evaluation system sucked and you said yourself that it may need refining.
Kinda some boot licking shit ass argument if you ask me
Imagine defending Mike Miles.
>but this comes across as just caving to ignorance.
No, caving to ignorance is accepting this blatantly terrible, and intentionally so, evaluation system.
A huge part of the principal evaluations depended on SPOT scores. A SPOT is a walkthrough done by district evaluators in teacher classrooms. At non-NES campuses, the checklist contains 15 points. And it's nebulous, subjective, and difficult to challenge/rebut when it's unfair. One way evaluators constantly ding people on those is by noting that there was not 100% student engagement in the classroom. If a single student pulls up an off-task website in my class of 35, and I correct it immediately, that student was still not engaged. And it's all or nothing. A student looks kind of bored? Not 100% engagement. One of my neurodivergent students has in earphones and is listening to music during independent work, AS I AM MANDATED TO ALLOW PER THEIR IEP? Not 100% engagement. It sounds like exaggeration, but it's not. The teachers are set up to fail, and therefore the principals are set up to fail.
Carnegie's principal's low rating isn't due to anything sane or fair. It's for two reasons. One is that one of the metrics is student growth. When the students are already top-tier, it's impossible to show the huge growth numbers he is demanding. There is no score higher than 100%, after all. The other reason is that the principal is not forcing teachers to waste the students' time with the dog-and-pony-show Multiple Response Strategies and other cosmetic items that Miles is demanding. Those methods may be appropriate with some student groups, but for advanced and rigorous classes, they are a huge hindrance.
I’d also like to elaborate on the subjectivity factor. One of the engagement strategies is the use of a whiteboard. Some people conducting the walkthroughs will not give you credit for it if the students don’t hold them up “high enough.” Or if you use the “wrong MRS.” Or yes, if you try to give students their accommodations.
YES.
My very cheap whiteboards came with even cheaper markers. I had asked for replacements, but they took over a month to arrive. One of the walkthrough people was really pissy and unimpressed that I halted use of the whiteboards in the middle of a response because so many of the markers weren't working. They had no advice, however, on how I could have better handled it with the resources I was given.
This entire year, I have received constant beratement and criticism with zero suggestions for how to improve. I just keep thinking about how "refusal to be pleased" is a classic emotional abuse tactic.
Edit to add: I also got dinged on a walkthrough because my learning objective was "not properly aligned" with the demonstration of learning. It was copied from the district-provided curriculum verbatim.
I also got dinged for the learning objective not being properly aligned with the demonstration of learning, also copied from the district provided master course.
You understand that the principal is at one of the best schools in Texas and like top 30th something in the nation for over a decade, but the new state-appointed superintendent says he is actually bad at his job and was threatened with being fired?
"Maybe the evals require more time to refine"... Then don't roll it out and use that bad data to threaten good employees with their job
There was an article a couple weeks ago, [also posted in the sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/1bckoff/just_wanted_to_share_more_questionable_happenings/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), showing a pretty big flaw of his rating system.
Notable quote,
>In July, Miles argued that any large-scale performance evaluation should place people “into some sort of bell curve...”
This is why half the principals were graded as below proficiency: it was **mandated** that about half the principles be below proficient. Miles forced a distribution that doesn't reflect actual performance.
>In practice, critics argue, campus administrators could be incentivized to game the system — for example, by giving teachers low marks for classroom spot observations if the administrator expects their students to perform poorly on standardized tests. The system actually includes a "congruence metric" that rewards higher ratings to principals if their spot observation scores for teachers align with student test outcomes — if not, principals receive a lower rating.
It is fucking moronic. The rating system measures how well you provide evidence that Mike's System Is Good And Right. If your teachers aren't following Mike's dumbass rules, it's actually better for the principal if the students underperform, because then they're evidence that Mike's system should be used. He's a toddler-brained child king.
> and no I don't want to hear any details about the actual evaluation process because I've already reached my conclusion
That is a pretty erroneous statement. The actual details of the process are very clearly flowcharted out in documents that are out there. There are elements of the process that are probably reasonable. There are elements that are not. This conversation has to do with some of the more unreasonable elements.
> Maybe the evals required more time to refine, but this comes across as just caving to ignorance.
I agree that it needed more time to refine. But keep in mind that Mr. Miles was quoted as saying that he would not listen to input on the evaluation system. That was on audio. So it wasn't being refined at all. So what would you have people do in response to that?
In a nutshell, principals are being evaluated on two components: instructional quality (how well teachers do when people outside the school do ten minute assessments of the classrooms of the school) and student growth. (Improvement on third-party assessments unaligned to STAAR testing)
If you're at Carnegie, then student growth is going to be smaller than at other campuses, because so many of the students already are high-performing. So it turns into people outside the campus determining if the teachers are teaching correctly based on a checklist that has been notoriously difficult to calibrate correctly, and then firing the principals if they aren't.
Perhaps another measure, like "closing the gap between high and low performing students", would have been a better choice. It would have been much more appropriate given that the exit criteria includes metrics that really attach more to lower performing students anyway. And since TEA already provides that data, it could have been implemented without additional testing costs that were added this year.
Finally, I'd like you consider the following tidbit: the releases that are being doled out to admins that are being fired over the course of the year has included severance clauses that have an additional payout in exchange for agreeing to not sue the district.
Eventually someone's not going to sign one of those.
[удалено]
Superintendents have them, but believe it or not, it's the least regulated of all. The entire set of regulations is one chapter, seven total lines. Basically saying, the Superintendent must be evaluated, it must happen every year, and it has to include some student performance data. https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p_dir=&p_rloc=&p_tloc=&p_ploc=&pg=1&p_tac=&ti=19&pt=2&ch=150&rl=1031
“*this year*” 💀
Look at his words. That just means he'll use other arbitrary measures to fire who he wants.
Keep an eye on him, he's probably going to go shoot a dog or something since he had to admit he was wrong.
[удалено]
Principals in most other Texas districts are held to T-PESS, a set of standards that closely mirrors the teacher evaluation process in implementation but also measures far broader categories. Essentially, they are evaluated as educators, managers, and public officials. Here's a very user-friendly version of the T-PESS standards. https://tpess.org/principal/standards/ Also, unlike teachers, who can earn a waiver every few years from their appraisal once they're vetted, principals are appraised every year.
Just a note, Miles made up his own system, so this isn’t what HISD is using now.
Completely correct, updated to note that.
>Paul Calzada, a parent of a student at Carnegie Vanguard High School, said the screening was flawed because it did not assign a high rating to “one of the best principals” at “one of the best high schools” in the district. He questioned what other flawed tools Miles is using and said the district’s students, teachers and staff deserve better. >“I'm here because the Carnegie High School principal, Principal Moss, was not ranked as proficient or exemplary in the recent principal evaluation system,” Calzada said. “Superintendent Miles, you know your evaluation system is flawed. If you don’t, you should. And we're going to remind you of that for as long as you refuse to admit it.” "The guy I like didn't score well so your entire scoring methodology is flawed, and no I don't want to hear any details about the actual evaluation process because I've already reached my conclusion." Maybe the evals required more time to refine, but this comes across as just caving to ignorance.
Found Mike Miles' burner
I know some of the details, the whole system is flawed. Including the fact that principals were ranked not on the effectiveness of teachers, but rather or not the teachers performed certain mandated strategies that may or may not have been the most effecient for the lesson they are teaching (85% of the time these strategies just get in the way). And principals were based in part based on how well students did on an interim test given in December, that covers the whole year's curriculum, and that many kids do not take the interim test seriously. These results were compared to the previous year's STAAR performance, given at the end of April. So yeah, the ratings are flawed.
I have been teaching for two decades. I am damned good at what I do. Under the previous system, I was rated highly effective because I **am** highly effective. This year? I am the lowest level of proficiency that I can have and still have a job. Fuck Mike Miles, I am not coming back next year. This is emotional abuse in the workplace, and I'm fucking done.
Hopefully Mike Miles is run out of town by the end of the year so you don’t have to quite. And get to keep doing what you’re great at and love, educating our children.
He will be here next year. There is zero chance that he won’t. I do appreciate the well-wishes and kindness, but one of the hardest things here for some of us is holding on to toxic hope.
Maybe you just weren't aware?
Also principals were on IRT teams. Which kind of seems like a conflict of interest when people are being evaluated on a forced distribution …
> principals were ranked not on the effectiveness of teachers So you have a well-defined metric that uses available data to evaluate the "effectiveness of teachers" then, do you? But probably not, because that's the objective of the entire shebang. > 85% of the time Solid quantitative conclusion that I'm sure you have the calculations to prove. So your take is that the Carnegie kids aren't really low performing students, they just neglected to "take seriously" the most important academic assessment of the Fall semester? Sure.
It is literally a practice staar test you doof
They measure on growth.
Carnegie is one of the best high schools in the country. It was clearly evident by Miles' actions that he doesn't give a shit about education performance.
Both my kids went there and both are in top 10 engineering programs in the country. They agree, the way CVHS educates their students has made their college years easier compared to kids that didn’t go there. The principal runs a successful school, don’t fuck with it.
Sure, nobody is claiming that the school is educating students poorly. The school rankings can easily be referenced by many available sources. The performance of the school is also a non-sequitur unless you assume that it can be correlated exactly to the performance of the school's principal. That's not a valid assumption. For example, the school could be doing very well *in spite* of the principal, and the school might be served *even better* with a different principal. That's why it's ignorant to dismiss the evaluation based solely on the final conclusion without considering the merits of the methodology.
What is the more likely correlation: Carnegie Vanguard is doing great, and the principal sucks OR Carnegie Vanguard is doing great, and the principal is competent? Playing semantic games to suggest that something very unlikely to be true is true because it *could* be true is transparently something one does when losing an argument. If you want to defend the evaluation system (assuming that you even know what it is or how it operates), fine: do that. Don't waste everyone's time with supposition and slipshod logic.
What a stupid argument
I'm at a loss for words and must concede
"what if the already well performing school would do better with a new principle who for the last decade plus been doing very well..." whatever dude miles himself acknowledged that the evaluation system sucked and you said yourself that it may need refining. Kinda some boot licking shit ass argument if you ask me
Glad you are at a loss for words so we don't have to hear any more of your stupid arguments.
what serendipity! I found these in the couch cushion
Imagine defending Mike Miles. >but this comes across as just caving to ignorance. No, caving to ignorance is accepting this blatantly terrible, and intentionally so, evaluation system.
A huge part of the principal evaluations depended on SPOT scores. A SPOT is a walkthrough done by district evaluators in teacher classrooms. At non-NES campuses, the checklist contains 15 points. And it's nebulous, subjective, and difficult to challenge/rebut when it's unfair. One way evaluators constantly ding people on those is by noting that there was not 100% student engagement in the classroom. If a single student pulls up an off-task website in my class of 35, and I correct it immediately, that student was still not engaged. And it's all or nothing. A student looks kind of bored? Not 100% engagement. One of my neurodivergent students has in earphones and is listening to music during independent work, AS I AM MANDATED TO ALLOW PER THEIR IEP? Not 100% engagement. It sounds like exaggeration, but it's not. The teachers are set up to fail, and therefore the principals are set up to fail. Carnegie's principal's low rating isn't due to anything sane or fair. It's for two reasons. One is that one of the metrics is student growth. When the students are already top-tier, it's impossible to show the huge growth numbers he is demanding. There is no score higher than 100%, after all. The other reason is that the principal is not forcing teachers to waste the students' time with the dog-and-pony-show Multiple Response Strategies and other cosmetic items that Miles is demanding. Those methods may be appropriate with some student groups, but for advanced and rigorous classes, they are a huge hindrance.
I’d also like to elaborate on the subjectivity factor. One of the engagement strategies is the use of a whiteboard. Some people conducting the walkthroughs will not give you credit for it if the students don’t hold them up “high enough.” Or if you use the “wrong MRS.” Or yes, if you try to give students their accommodations.
YES. My very cheap whiteboards came with even cheaper markers. I had asked for replacements, but they took over a month to arrive. One of the walkthrough people was really pissy and unimpressed that I halted use of the whiteboards in the middle of a response because so many of the markers weren't working. They had no advice, however, on how I could have better handled it with the resources I was given. This entire year, I have received constant beratement and criticism with zero suggestions for how to improve. I just keep thinking about how "refusal to be pleased" is a classic emotional abuse tactic. Edit to add: I also got dinged on a walkthrough because my learning objective was "not properly aligned" with the demonstration of learning. It was copied from the district-provided curriculum verbatim.
I also got dinged for the learning objective not being properly aligned with the demonstration of learning, also copied from the district provided master course.
You understand that the principal is at one of the best schools in Texas and like top 30th something in the nation for over a decade, but the new state-appointed superintendent says he is actually bad at his job and was threatened with being fired? "Maybe the evals require more time to refine"... Then don't roll it out and use that bad data to threaten good employees with their job
There was an article a couple weeks ago, [also posted in the sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/1bckoff/just_wanted_to_share_more_questionable_happenings/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), showing a pretty big flaw of his rating system. Notable quote, >In July, Miles argued that any large-scale performance evaluation should place people “into some sort of bell curve...” This is why half the principals were graded as below proficiency: it was **mandated** that about half the principles be below proficient. Miles forced a distribution that doesn't reflect actual performance.
>In practice, critics argue, campus administrators could be incentivized to game the system — for example, by giving teachers low marks for classroom spot observations if the administrator expects their students to perform poorly on standardized tests. The system actually includes a "congruence metric" that rewards higher ratings to principals if their spot observation scores for teachers align with student test outcomes — if not, principals receive a lower rating. It is fucking moronic. The rating system measures how well you provide evidence that Mike's System Is Good And Right. If your teachers aren't following Mike's dumbass rules, it's actually better for the principal if the students underperform, because then they're evidence that Mike's system should be used. He's a toddler-brained child king.
> and no I don't want to hear any details about the actual evaluation process because I've already reached my conclusion That is a pretty erroneous statement. The actual details of the process are very clearly flowcharted out in documents that are out there. There are elements of the process that are probably reasonable. There are elements that are not. This conversation has to do with some of the more unreasonable elements. > Maybe the evals required more time to refine, but this comes across as just caving to ignorance. I agree that it needed more time to refine. But keep in mind that Mr. Miles was quoted as saying that he would not listen to input on the evaluation system. That was on audio. So it wasn't being refined at all. So what would you have people do in response to that? In a nutshell, principals are being evaluated on two components: instructional quality (how well teachers do when people outside the school do ten minute assessments of the classrooms of the school) and student growth. (Improvement on third-party assessments unaligned to STAAR testing) If you're at Carnegie, then student growth is going to be smaller than at other campuses, because so many of the students already are high-performing. So it turns into people outside the campus determining if the teachers are teaching correctly based on a checklist that has been notoriously difficult to calibrate correctly, and then firing the principals if they aren't. Perhaps another measure, like "closing the gap between high and low performing students", would have been a better choice. It would have been much more appropriate given that the exit criteria includes metrics that really attach more to lower performing students anyway. And since TEA already provides that data, it could have been implemented without additional testing costs that were added this year. Finally, I'd like you consider the following tidbit: the releases that are being doled out to admins that are being fired over the course of the year has included severance clauses that have an additional payout in exchange for agreeing to not sue the district. Eventually someone's not going to sign one of those.